dance

dance. In every age and among every race dancing has existed either as recreation or as a religious manifestation or as both.

In Europe all countries have their traditional (‘folk’) dances. Those of England are numerous, falling into three classes—for men alone the Sword Dance and the Morris Dances and for men and women together the Country Dances.

There has always been a tendency for some peasant dances to pass into wider use, their steps and music then becoming sophisticated. Some typical examples are allemande, bergomask, bourrée, branle, canaries, chaconne and passacaglia, courante, dump, gavotte, hay, jig, minuet, passamezzo, passepied, pavan and galliard, rigaudon, sarabande, volta. The rhythms and styles of some of the above, from the 16th cent. onwards, supplied conventional models for instrumental compositions (see suite). The Dances later popular in social circles (some of them of rustic origin) were the minuet and the Eng. country dance (17th cent.); cotillon and écossaise (18th cent.); waltz, quadrille, polka, schottische, mazurka, barn dance (19th cent.); and some of these also were taken as models by instrumental composers.

In the 20th cent. the dance has become synonymous with ballet, but the pattern of previous centuries has continued and modern dances such as the foxtrot, quickstep, and rumba have influenced composers. Dance companies such as those of Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham in the USA have been of significant importance. Dance has also been harnessed to electronic mus. See ballet.